odsx.com

To dispel a certain myth re; this blog.  I do not sit for hours searching, compiling this sorta literary edifice.  Like today, first coffee, late morning, perusing the news, certain sites I habituate, fascinating-informative tid-bits emerge;  Some of these go here…and while reading and thinking, certain of my thoughts go here.  Over all I guess this would represent a fair space of time were I to do it all at once, but I do not have that much time – all at once. My wish, again, is to titillate, inform, question, provide enjoyment, go f0r the grins! – and this brings me pleasure.  (I  will, at times, perhaps include things that may despoil some sensibilities….no apologies, this will be good for you!).   J.

Have not got the full hang of this blog.  I will get there, for instance, the url’s I’ve posted require hands on – you must copy and paste to see what they are….with Dawn’s help I will try to rectify that.   There is one improvement.  There is a short video, Gun Control, that we loaded successfully.  At least I could view it in a previewing….I do have Winamp installed, I believe that may be what it takes.  Hope you all enjoy! 

Want to add one thing here, a ways further on I have included a short story by Daisy.  Please read it.  It is so good, I promise you will enjoy.  Give her feed back, kudos galore, send them in the comment section of this Blog, I’ll see that she sees them.

The following is an excellent example of my increasing distance from politics.  The hateful  partisanship, all the more exemplified because a black is president (I am not talking about prejudice here…Someone  I consider a close friend  said to me;  “I can’t stand Them.  I don’t like the way  They look, the way They smell, I don’t like anything about Them.” ..that’s prejudice!!…..  Have to tell you I was totally blown away!!  But, this person is not in politics!); but back to politics;   the acceptance that nothing can be done without skulduggery  (a cute word hiding very sinister acts), rampant, accepted extreme theft!~one is assured of wealth as a politician (no, not all, otherwise we long ago would have been delivered to anarchy), and continued wealth and power in most cases!;  It is a job for life. ( My father once told me never to talk to anyone about religion, politics and how much money you make.  LOL…well, the money thing is pretty much in the open for us LOL…if it weren’t for our blessed friends I/we would be in the poor house!)    Religion and politics are no more, there are only very sad semblances, travesties of what once were remaining.  Sadly, I do not know the answer to replace these ‘institutions’ (do we even need to!?), am convinced neither of these are the answer, hello perdition!!……  OH, the url (can you believe this!  Goes right up there with shooting the Dr. at his abortion clinic) – http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/51718,news,barack-obama-joker-poster-picture-lifts-conservatives-us-america-los-angeles

I have begun surfing off and on already today, 1st coffee in hand.  After that first entry, my mood is a bit sullied, I noticed a tendency to be drawn to more negative events (not so difficult anymore it seems, they are a proliferation!).  Now I find this, brings a smile to my face and sorta fits my reaction to the first entry LOLOL.  http://funnyjunk.com/movies/2345/The+history+of+FUCK+/

This is pretty cool….ever been to N.Y.?, even so, this gives perspective as you have not imagined…..let the pics load…takes a minute, then slowly revolves….use the directive buttons to the right to further control the panorama, enjoy…..http://www.pixelcase.com.au/vr/2009/newyork/

This may be a find, you know, one of those places on the web falling into your hands taking your breathe away – beware this could take hours, could be addictive!  I haven’t looked into it yet, but strongly feel this is the case http://www.greatmirror.com/index.cfm

Recently read an article re; global warming – wish I had kept it – stating we are in a time of cusp where all on earth are going through a time of adaptation to an epoch of hotter climes.  Whatever survives, comes through, will thereafter exist in a very much warmer climate.  LOL, would seem that way no matter what, hey?  http://sitrep.globalsecurity.org/articles/090729428-addressing-global-warming-wate.htm

Since being home from hospital (I know it has been awhile, yet things are now coming into shape?  More to come I hope?), my sleeping patterns have oft gone astray.  Saw this little blurb, is the simplest execution, I probably will try it…at any rate, I send it on;  http://www.wisebread.com/how-to-naturally-reset-your-sleep-cycle-overnight

http://thesmartset.com/article/article07290902.aspx?campaignID=8969&contactID=699320name=%27ID_FS_FAVRE_KETCH%27%3E

Okay, I tried, have been picking only little curios, interesting things, etc.  Good friend just sent me an email – friend is a teacher and was, of course, piqued by comments I had in last blog re;  TBE and the big influx of creationism ( no, I will not capitalize!) trend there (in many thanks to crooked Perry, also insidious infiltration of the last years regime [yes, I am very biased here]).)

This is his email; “This is a real sore spot for me, of course, as it affects my job. A couple of years ago, I sat on the committee to review the new art textbook adoption, so I got a good look at the process. They set us up in the Driscoll Hotel for three days and we went over every publishers advance copies with a fine tooth comb. Wish I could do the same for science and history, but they haven’t invited me back.
The Sate Board of Education  reviews each textbook’s content, and if they don’t like it, they can hold the book hostage until the publisher agrees to change the content. Most publishers comply with this extortion and censorship, since with an annual budget for textbooks of $570 million, Texas “is clearly one of the most dominant states in setting textbook adoption standards,” says Stephen Driesler, executive director of the American Association of Publishers’ school division. Publishers will often have their books written to appeal to the Texas market, because it is so enormous, and thus “Texas-vetted” textbooks will appear in the public schools of most other states.”

Well, most of us knew aoubt most of this….:)  Friend  sent a few url’s in that email too…..I will list a couple.   One is, admittedly, as slanted in it’s direction as the right wing christians are in theirs, choice still is very clear for me!!            http://ncseweb.org/news/2009/07/new-chair-texas-state-board-education-004905          http://tfnblog.wordpress.com/      http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/07/30-1   and finally this one, the other extreme, can you blame them?   http://rackjite.com/archives/3666-Texas-State-Board-of-Education-to-Replace-Lincoln-with-Jesus-in-textbooks.html

It is of interest to note, a majority of the well-known founding fathers were atheist, agnostic, indifferent and in the case of Jackson, held Jesus in high regard but did not believe in re-birth, etc., etc.  Anyone find this unbelievable?  I challenge you to pursue a few  biographies.  Study of the politics at the time of the Ind. of Dec. shows most of the references to religion, etc., were made as ‘deals’ with a certain group in order to proceed.  Crap!  Now I’m going to have to suspend my  browsings….may be to apt to dig on this kind of thing…..later, maybe today.

Well, of some interest, provides some hope, but then my outlook on all this is not what I have been able to read anywhere – yet.  Mayhaps I need to expond on this some day?  Not yet.   http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/a_bloom_in_biofuels/

I just finished reading, Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.  If you enjoy reading, read this book!!  It is so very, very will written, such a remarkable tale….read it!

More on text books, sent by friend;  http://www.texscience.org/files/textbook-adoption.htm

(The following site has it all, especially if you are into music and histroy of same…but there is old Chicago on photos, etc…don’t pass this by!!) Anyone like this kind of thing!  Oh. my, my do I.   Interesting story about the man, stuff to listen to, things to record…lap it up!!  http://boogiewoogieflu.blogspot.com/   When I was in high school in the 50′s in central Illionois, my dad was into antiques.  He got a huge, square stand up victrola, played records like these, though his were older – very thick, only had the track on one side…..titles like, “you you tell her cause I I stutter too much.”  There were a lot of oldies, this was long before folks like Guy Monroe and his royal mounted canadians….LOLOL.

I like the absurd, realisticly unreal – to that end, watch the few minutes long ‘mini-movie’ about the bikini vampire!  What a hoot!   http://wakatiki.blogspot.com/

Whatever it’s worht…..http://www.poodwaddle.com/homepageeditor.htm

underground offend anyone Russian rebellion  http://exiledonline.com/

Go here, see a video Kieth Ledger nearly finished before his death….you will enjoy…http://www.buzzfeed.com/gustavoa/modest-mouse-video-directed-by-heath-ledger-4bf

I guess I missed out, but really did know about anything going on….my first wife and I separated early in 1968.  Later I moved from Madison, Wis. to Winona, Minn. with a red-headed lady….we were there a while then moved to Westport, Conn.  I.e., I was very close to Woodstock at the time it was happening….I was around all kinds of hippy types, in fact, I were one!  Now why in hell didn’t we/I know.  We sure would have gone.  I just can’t believe we knew and didnt go….was a time in life when it was very possilbe to have done so…had time and transportation…..oh, well.  What is life but opportunities, and some are missed   http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/51733,features,pictures-photographs-woodstock-festival-40-sixties-remembered-yasgur-bethel-hippies  (click anywhere on the pic to go to next).

I do believe you must have Winamp to see this, worth the effort, is a free download……GunCONTROL

Following cartoon sent by my teacher friend……

Now I have just got to post this here, maybe it is a long read for you, I sure hope not.  It is sort of a short story by my 18 yr. old daughter, headed off to college in a couple of weeks.  She wrote it a week or so ago, ironically before we just had an episode at night with a oppossum in our bedroom LOLOL.  I love it!!:

I’ve never been a big church goer myself, but my Ma, she raised me right and taught me to be a God-fearing man. I had a Bible somewhere in the house, and maybe I read it on Christmas if I could find it, but not much else. Maybe I believed, but there wasn’t much practical use for things like that way out here. If you couldn’t touch it or chow it down at meal time, it wasn’t of no use to ya.

Besides, my Ma always said that it wasn’t always God you needed to fear, but sometimes the Devil, too. See, the Devil ain’t a bad man but he has a job and he does it, she’d say. He can’t help if that’s a bad job or what. That always made a might big bit of sense to me. Like that poor kid down the road, the one who shoveled the horse shit on the weekdays and drove the hearse for funerals on weekends. No one liked the jobs he did, but he did him anyway ‘cause he had to feed himself. It didn’t seem to me like the Devil was all that bad of a guy, really. I always thought that maybe he’d like fishing a bit.

So one day the Devil showed up at my door with a guitar, a bag over his shoulder, and a shiny new pair of boots. And he said, I need a place to stay for a while, mister, would you mind? And I looked at him real long and hard and I said, Sure you can stay here, Mr. Devil, as long as you don’t keep me up at night and don’t bring no sin in the house.

So the Devil stayed for a while, all through winter. He said he liked the winter because it didn’t snow all over the place, like it did in some other places up North. He played the guitar and sang his songs and didn’t put his feet up on the tables, so I liked him well enough. I learned a few things about him, too. Sometimes he’d sit out on the porch on the swing and just watch winter as it went on by. He only liked his coffee as black as I could make it, and could actually paint a pretty picture not too badly. He liked to paint fences and dead, gray trees as they reached for the sky. Somehow, I had a feelin’ he was making a joke that I was missing when he painted things like that, but I never minded. I wasn’t too smart, anyhow, so it wasn’t like it would be hard to make me miss a joke.

Spring wasn’t his favorite, I knew, but he never complained. He didn’t spend as much time outside, which was good because he never looked quite right in the fields of pink and yellow in green, and he always looked a bit sick after he went outside. The paintin’ stopped and he was a bit difficult to deal with, but once I told him that spring never lasted too long, he was right as rain. The rain came in before too long and changed his mood right around, anyway. He liked the spring rains an awful lot and spent more time outside.

It was around summer time that things started going south. When things started getting hot, he’d get all cranky and fussy and fidgety until I finally told him I wasn’t gonna give him no more food if he didn’t behave, so he shut up for a while and things were okay. But then one mornin’ he’d come down for some grub and he’d be all fussy again, and we’d go through it over again. It was mighty frustrating and though he said he wanted to stay with me, I wasn’t too sure things were gonna keep working out. It’s so hot, he would complain to me for the millionth time. How do you people survive out here? he’d ask. Well, Mr. Devil, I don’t quite reckon I can tell you. We all just do, I suppose, ‘cause we were borned here and it’s home. No place beats home, you know? He would sigh and nod and look all wistful for a moment, and then he’d get up and wander away.

One morning, he came downstairs sweatin’ something terrible and swearing and generally carrying on. Apparently a ‘possum had come in through his window that night, and he was still hot, and he really did look pretty darn hot, like the skin was peeling off his bones. He wasn’t gonna stay here another minute, I could tell, and pretty soon he went upstairs to pack his bags. He shook my hand and thanked me for the time he had spent here, and promised he’d come visit again sometime, and told me I was always welcome to visit him. You know the path to find me, after all, he said with that grin and all his white teeth. And then he was gone, out the door in a rush with his guitar over one shoulder. I swear, I never saw a man move so fast down the road, like the hounds from Hell were chasing him.

I guess Texas was just too hot for the Devil.

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/is-a-psychopath-attacking-twitter-and-facebook/

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between Grandmothers & Grandfathers? Well here it is:
A friend, who worked away from home all week, always made a special effort with his family on the weekends. Every Sunday morning he would take his 7-year old Granddaughter out for a drive in the car for some bonding time. Just he and his Granddaughter.
One particular Sunday however, he had a bad cold and really didn’t feel like being up at all. Luckily, his wife came to the rescue and said that she would take their granddaughter out. When they returned, the little girl anxiously ran upstairs to see her grandfather.
‘Well, did you enjoy your ride with grandma?’
‘Oh yes, Papa’ the girl replied, and do you know what?  We didn’t see a single dumb bastard, dip shit or horse’s ass anywhere we went today!’
Brings a tear to your eye doesn’t it….

Know a fellar lives not far from me, John.  Is a crew boss of a group that installs microwave towers, transmitters, etc.  When these were first being erected a few years ago, there were problems with interfering sounds at frequencies that were interfering with the microwaves.  They found that the Loblolly trees were emitting that frequency, that sound.  ‘Course they got around it by changing the equip.  I just thought it interesting, not at all surpriseable the trees were humming!  LOL http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/hummingearth/

Ah, can you see the head of me sitting on your desk, lovingly gazing atyo?  And then knowing my ashes were inside?  LOL  Oh, think this is kinky, hugh?!  LOL  Check it out!!  http://www.cremationsolutions.com/Personal-Urns-c109.html

Just one of those things, when I saw it I had to giggle…et vous??   

I scanned first part of the following article….seemed at times technical, by the same token also not out of reach, so I include it here;  http://www.talkreason.org/articles/Three.cfm

I like these!!!  http://www.bouldertherapist.com/html/humor/WordPlays/lexophiles.htm

This link includes a short documentary and words about one of my favorite authors, Jorge Borges.  http://www.ubu.com/film/borges.html

____________________________________________________________________________

(I lifted the following from the author’s review.)

This is where it really gets good. This is where we start to see who’s committed. This is where we break out the Real Shit and let you take it for a test drive.

So if you’re ready for Adult Business—like tea, sex and Waking Up and Saving Your World—then welcome to the party. If you’re still huffing the Apocalypse like glue in a bag, may I suggest you sample some of the contents within these pages and rethink your choice of drug.

Put your hand in the river that is time and meaning and language and watch it all flow around you and turn through a space you forgot to see. Watch it bend around and respond to your touch and laugh that you have remembered to see it. Shaping.

Anything can be made. Anything can be shaped. Love is the law. And it always is. So get together and Do It. Make a scene. Break boundaries. Lead by example. Invent the future as you go. (After all, you may well need to start rehearsing for the end of the Nation-State, when tribal loyalty, mutual trust and collective vision are not a curiosity but rather what your survival becomes hinged on.)

And that’s all that Ultraculture is. You and your friends, armed with the certainty that comes from knowing that you are God. All of them, in fact, among all of them. Here to play, here to create, along with everybody else. Everybody else, who just happen to be God too, conspiring to make the best of all possible Universes. That’s my Truth. That’s what I’m offering you, along with a suitcase full of toys.

And if you take it, I leave you with that question again: What are you doing? What are you gonna do next?

Enjoy yourselves out there. It’s a big, wide, bizarre playground of a planet. And this party ain’t over yet. Oh no. Not by a long, long shot.

So welcome, welcome. Welcome to the party and welcome to the first issue of Ultraculture Journal, the periodical of choice for Discerning Divinities. Buddhists say your soul changes phase every seven years, and biologists say that your body completely replaces its cells every seven years too, but we aim to take the High Road and get both done by the time you’re done reading our first issue. You’ve been forewarned. Nothing will be the same ever again.

This is the first in a planned six-volume set. I figure I’ll do one a year until 2012, which seems as arbitary of a date as any to stop. We’ll see where this Grand Experiment takes us up till then, and whatever this has all mutated into by then I suspect will be far bigger and weirder than anything any of us can foresee.

This is where it really gets good. This is where we start to see who’s committed. This is where we break out the Real Shit and let you take it for a test drive.

So if you’re ready for Adult Business—like tea, sex and Waking Up and Saving Your World—then welcome to the party. If you’re still huffing the Apocalypse like glue in a bag, may I suggest you sample some of the contents within these pages and rethink your choice of drug.

Put your hand in the river that is time and meaning and language and watch it all flow around you and turn through a space you forgot to see. Watch it bend around and respond to your touch and laugh that you have remembered to see it. Shaping.

Anything can be made. Anything can be shaped. Love is the law. And it always is. So get together and Do It. Make a scene. Break boundaries. Lead by example. Invent the future as you go. (After all, you may well need to start rehearsing for the end of the Nation-State, when tribal loyalty, mutual trust and collective vision are not a curiosity but rather what your survival becomes hinged on.)

And that’s all that Ultraculture is. You and your friends, armed with the certainty that comes from knowing that you are God. All of them, in fact, among all of them. Here to play, here to create, along with everybody else. Everybody else, who just happen to be God too, conspiring to make the best of all possible Universes. That’s my Truth. That’s what I’m offering you, along with a suitcase full of toys.

And if you take it, I leave you with that question again: What are you doing? What are you gonna do next?

Enjoy yourselves out there. It’s a big, wide, bizarre playground of a planet. And this party ain’t over yet. Oh no. Not by a long, long shot.

____________________________________________________

Alright, this is it!  AFter reading this article, I am sure you will realize we must do something about Nature!  We can no more brook Her continuing unnatural display!  This is it, We have had it!!!  (LOLOL)  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/science/earth/09climate.html?hp

Pencil and Eraser Trivia

Graphite is a form of carbon, first discovered in the Seathwaite Valley on the side of the mountain Seathwaite Fell in Borrowdale, near Keswick, England, about 1564 by an unknown person. Shortly after this the first pencils were made in the same area. http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa100197.htm

Brrrr!   http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/skull-cathedral-otranto-bones-martyrs-adorn-walls/9100

Now this is opulence, viewed by many of us who could live a year on the cost of one night in the Royal Villa, Athens, Greece as decadence!   http://stylecrave.com/2009-05-15/luxury-hotels-10-of-the-worlds-most-expensive-resorts/

I just cannot let some things trite pass by, just can’t do it…this made me smile for awhile…..D.O.M.!   LOLOL

U.S Census Bureau in pdf form!  You always wanted this, admit it!  http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/statab2006_2009.html

Early 20th cent. – phew!  http://dearcomputer.nl/gir/?q=Egon+Schiele&s=4&imgtype=any&nsfw=on    Schiele, Egon (?‘gôn sh?‘l?) , 1890–1918, Austrian expressionist painter and draftsman, studied Vietta Academy of Fine Arts. Influenced by the French impressionists, then by Gustav Klimt, Schiele developed a taut, linear style, emphasizing attenuated anatomical structure in drawings and paintings that often have strong sexual subject matter. Best known for his gaunt self-portraits and erotic figure studies, he also painted haunting portraits of his contemporaries and dark, brooding landscapes. With Kokoschka, he was in the forefront of the Austrian expressionist movement (see expressionism) until his sudden death at 28 of influenza. The Neue Galerie, New York City, has the largest collection of works by Schiele in the United States.

A bunch! of goodies.  http://www.metmuseum.org/special/index.asp

________________________________________________________fin d’histoire

I love these!!

LEXOPHILES (LOVERS OF WORDS):

1. A bicycle can’t stand alone; it is two tired.

2. A will is a dead giveaway.

3. Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

4. A backward poet writes inverse.

5. In a democracy it’s your vote that counts; in feudalism, it’s your Count that votes.

6. A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.

7. If you don’t pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.

8. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.

9. Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I’ll show you A-flat miner.

10. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

11. The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.

12. A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France resulted in Linoleum Blownapart.

13. You are stuck with your debt if you can’t budge it.

14. Local Area Network in Australia : The LAN down under.

15. He broke into song because he couldn’t find the key.

16. A calendar’s days are numbered.

17. A lot of money is tainted: ‘Taint yours, and ‘taint mine.

18. A boiled egg is hard to beat.

19. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

20. A plateau is a high form of flattery.

21. The short fortuneteller who escaped from prison: a small medium at large.

22. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

23. When you’ve seen one shopping center you’ve seen a mall.

24. If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.

25. When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she’d dye.

26. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.

27. Santa’s helpers are subordinate clauses.

28. Acupuncture: a jab well done.

29. Marathon runners with bad shoes suffer the agony of de feet.

30. The roundest knight at king Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.

31. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.

32. She was only a whisky maker, but he loved her still.

33. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.

34. The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.

35. No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.

36. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

37. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

38. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.

39. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

40. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other, ‘You stay here, I’ll go on a head.’

41. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

42. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: ‘Keep off the Grass.’

43. A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, ‘No change yet.’

44. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

45. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.

46. Don’t join dangerous cults: Practice safe sects.

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